Political Blogs: Walking Down the Aisle

Working as the blogger relations manager for PR Newswire, I come across my fair share of great blogs that cover a wide variety of subject matters and interests. And as you might expect, some blogs are better than others. With that in mind and in an effort to highlight the better ones, I do my best to review one of these blogs every day. This week my focus is on political blogs. I know. I know. One shouldn’t discuss politics or religion at the dinner table. But this is a blog post. And I’ve tried to give everyone equal time here. Besides, politics as theater is pretty fun to watch. It’s also pretty important. Being informed is the first step to having a stake in the policies that affect our nation’s future. So with that in mind, let’s rally up the base, affix miniature American flag pins to our lapels, and take a tour through this brief roundup of some of the best political blogs I’ve seen lately.

Up Front is probably more about policy than it is about politics. By that I mean, it’s not so much about the candidates and the elections, but more about the measures they enact and how that affects the general population. If I were to pitch this blog, I’d look for something firmly entrenched in policy, be it domestic or global. Check out the full review here.

RedState is a one of the better conservative political blogs out there. It’s actually just a great blog. And given my recent voting record, that’s not something I’d just say casually. The truth is these writers are smart, informed and tenacious. If I were to pitch this blog, I’d look for something in the interest of conservative voters and readers. Policy news and economic data would probably also be welcome. And Dems need not be terrified. These guys are tough, but fair. Check out the full review here.

Combat! only updates once a day, but boy when it does… To me Combat! is a smart and often very funny reflection of the truly bizarre, albeit commonplace elements of our culture. For better or worse, this eloquent ridicule is a lot of times directed towards the Republican party. But that’s not a hard and fast rule. Being absurd seems to be an equal opportunity gig these days. If I were to pitch this blog, and I’m not sure I would, I’d look for stories that look to reveal incongruities, either political or otherwise. Check out the full review here.

So much of politics is in the numbers. Exit polls, voter turnout, electoral votes. No matter how you slice it, there’s always at least some math involved in politics. And that’s where FiveThirtyEight comes in. This is the statistics heavy political blog from Nate Silver. If I were to pitch this blog, I’d have the story tied to some interesting statistic… and I’d pray that Silver doesn’t dissect and debunk it immediately. Guy’s kind of a genius. Check out the full review here.

Talking Points Memo is probably the most prolific political blog listed on here. And it’s not one party or the other, and it’s not just policy. It’s everything. If there’s a new poll to examine or if some politician misspeaks, they’re going to cover it on TPM. If I were to pitch this blog, I’d look for anything to do with politics: elections, policy, voting records, statistics, Republicans, Democrats. They write about it all. Check out the full review here.

That’s all for now. In the meantime, if there’s a blog I should be reviewing, drop me a line or a note in the comments, and I’ll take a look. Until next time…

Author Tom Hynes is PR Newswire’s manager of blogger relations. And as you may have guessed, he has a twitter account.

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